Out this week: Flâneuse by Lauren Elkin; Abandon Me by Melissa Febos; Lower Ed by Tressie McMillan Cottom; Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler; No Other World by Rahul Mehta; Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan; and To Be a Machine by our own Mark O’Connell (who we interviewed recently). For more on these and other new titles, go read our most recent book preview.
Tuesday New Release Day: Elkin; Febos; Cottom; Butler; Mehta; Buchanan; O’Connell
Tilt-Shift Carnival
Jarbas Agnelli’s tilt-shifted images from Rio’s 2011 Carnival make the entire Brazilian city look like a bunch of animated, playful bath toys. I mean that in the most beautiful way possible.
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“Our sturdiest atheists”
Recommended Reading: Millions contributor Michelle Huneven on Charles Baxter’s There’s Something I Want You to Do.
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Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced
The shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 has been announced. This list features Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo, and three other books by Spanish and Norwegian authors.
Revisiting Vanessa Veselka
Revisiting Vanessa Veselka’s Zazen and what constitutes as an acceptable author bio.
Save Me the Waltz
“It is the persistent, damning mischaracterisation of Zelda as ‘insane’ that most needs undoing. The trouble lies in the diagnosis she was given in 1930: ‘schizophrenia’. While today we know it to mean severe mental illness requiring delicate and often lifelong treatment with medications, therapies, and sometimes institutionalisation, in Zelda’s time it was a catch-all label for a range of emotional difficulties.” Reexamining the life and reputation of Zelda Fitzgerald.
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The Darker Side of Jack London
“The United States has a startling ability to take its most angry, edgy radicals and turn them into cuddly eunuchs.” Johann Hari reviews James L. Haley’s new biography Wolf: The Lives of Jack London, at Slate.
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Tove Jansson to Grace Finnish Coins
Finland will pay tribute to author and artist Tove Jansson by adding her likeness to a new two-Euro commemorative coin. This isn’t the first time a country’s wanted to add an author to their currency. (Related: Alex Ohlin looks at the “sad, strange brilliance” of Moomin; and Jansson’s works are recommended by Emily St. John Mandel and Rachel Meier.)
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